hooked on crochet & always knitting

Tag: crochet

I swear one of these days I’ll catch up on photographing my newer projects and current WIPs so I can share. Until then, have another project from last Christmas. 😉
Today’s project is The Turtle Hat. If you guessed that this hat was a gift for anyone other than my father-in-law, you would be wrong!

To give a little background on this project let’s rewind to Christmas of 2014. My father-in-law saw the crocheted helmet that I made for T and requested a turtle hat. Because y’know… Helmet, turtle hat. They’re almost the same thing.
That’s the short story, but I feel like I should mention that he was very specific about it. He told me in great detail that the hat should be the body of the turtle and it was necessary that it have a cute, floppy head and legs.

I wasn’t very confident in my crochet skills at the time so for Christmas that year, I made him a hat with a turtle applique on it as a stand-in until I felt like I could pull off the ultimate turtle hat. (Check my entry here for more info on that.)

I let my desire to make a real turtle hat simmer for a few years until I felt confident that I could pull off what was asked of me. The biggest decision I had to make with this project was whether I should make the head and legs in a tube shape and stuff them. I was worried that they would get in the way more than anything, so I ultimately decided to do the cute little flaps instead.

Another design decision that I was unsure about was how to create a turtle shell texture. I almost made individual pentagonal pieces to attach to the hat, but I thought that would make it too heavy and/or stiff. It would also be much more time consuming than I was prepared for. Surface crochet it is!

And that’s how I ended up with this fella.

I’m really proud of how he came out considering I created this pattern on the fly. There are a few things I might do differently, if I made it again.

I would make the inside lines thicker. I did a double line on the bottom, but I did single lines on the inside. (Or I might even do the idea with the pentagonal pieces sewed on and then surface stitch across the seams.)

I would make double the amount of flaps and stuff them lightly so they would have a little more dimension.

I would make the surface stitches looser. I made them loose enough where the hat would still stretch, but there was a little bit of an issue with the fit being a hair tight around the bottom band.

As with the last project, I still have the pattern notes so if anyone would like to see a pattern written for this, let me know in the comments! 🙂

Hello, all! I have another 2018 gift to share with you today. It’s unique in that it’s a design that I threw together myself. I was trying to find a gift idea that was practical yet classy for my mother-in-law. I went through some patterns on Ravelry, but couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. Thus, the “color-block scarf” was born! (I know. Catchy name, right?)

I got some info from T about what her favorite colors were, and after careful deliberation, I decided to combine them via color-blocking. The idea behind this was that it would, hopefully, help the scarf to go with multiple outfits as she could wear whichever color matches on the front/top of the scarf. She wears red often so the goal was to give her a fun accessory to match.
I was also a little worried with the red once I started working with it. It definitely needed some other colors to tone it down a little bit. It’s like… Violently red.

I really like the fabric made by this stitch so I’m already planning on using it again on a future project. Maybe another version of the scarf, but striped or solid color would be nice! I have so much yarn sitting around, I’m sure I could come up with something. (At that point would it even still be called the “color-block scarf”!?)

I think I still have the project notes for this somewhere so if anyone is interested in having the pattern, leave a comment below and I’ll cobble together a readable pattern from my coded notes! 🙂

(They’re not coded. They’re just chicken scratch and only I can read them.)

I’ll be back in the near future with other yarny news. Thanks for reading! ❤

I’ve been using Ravelry since I started knitting back in 2014, and it’s seriously been a lifesaver. If you haven’t heard of it, Ravelry is a website for people who are into fiber arts. You can log your yarn stash, find patterns, make a list of future projects, keep track of your current or past projects, and connect with other yarny people. It’s really been so helpful for me to have a resource like that to keep track of all these things. I really recommend it. </fangirling>

So why are we talking about Ravelry? I hear you ask. Let me get straight to the point.
In the past few years since I started this blog, I haven’t publicly shared my Ravelry account. I wasn’t hiding it or anything, and several clever readers were able to find me quite easily, but I just hadn’t thought about sharing it. Until today.

So that’s it. I just wanted to share my links with fellow Ravelry users. If you want to check out my current and past projects or my library, feel free to visit my profile page and don’t be afraid to add me, if you’d like! 🙂

For those of you interested in my patterns, you can find my designer page too! I’m actually working on two new patterns right now. One of them will hopefully go up within the next few weeks so keep an eye out for that.

I’ll also be adding some links in the sidebar somewhere so anyone can find me whenever they need to.

Thanks for reading this rather pointless entry. I promise I’ll have something better to talk about next week. 😉

Several years ago, I made some cactuar plushes as Christmas gifts for my brother-in-laws. They were a huge success so I wanted to add on to their growing plush collection this year with another set of iconic Final Fantasy creatures: chocobo!

Aren’t they so adorable!? They were a little harder to make than I thought they would be, but I’m very satisfied with the finished product. I’m already planning on making a couple for me and T after my fingers recover. (The head feathers were so tiny, I could barely hold them when I was crocheting them. It was actually kind of painful!)

One of the reasons I’m so glad (and relieved) that they came out so well is because I had an accident while making them. I had thought that the pattern called for worsted weight yarn, but it was fingering weight! (Oops!) Since I only had worsted weight to work with, I just went ahead with the pattern. It was too late at that point to buy different yarn or find another project. (I seriously finished these little guys the day before I gifted them. It was a close call!)

When I did gift them, they were a huge hit! The recipients seemed super pleased and even took all the family Christmas photos with their chocobo. I was really excited to see how much they liked them.

If you’re interested in crocheting one these cuties, the pattern is Small Chocobo by Joey Kuan on Ravelry. I just used a bunch of yarn that I had sitting in my stash; a combination of Caron Simply Soft in Pumpkin, Sunshine, and White and Red Heart Super Saver in Cafe Latte. Even though the pattern calls for safety eyes, I couldn’t find any in time to attach them so I used bits of black yarn instead.

My project page on Ravelry just hit 50 unique projects! It’s so cool to be able to look back at everything I’ve made, from practical wool scarves and hats to cute plushes and cozies. Many of these items were made as gifts, but as I browsed through some of my past projects I realized that I hadn’t made anything for my sister yet!

January is her birthday month so I finally took the opportunity to make her a little something. She loves jellyfish and the color purple so I knew this would be the perfect gift.

Behold! The cutest jellyfish in the world!

It only took me two evenings of crocheting to complete this project. I binge watched the first season of Sherlock as I worked, and the time flew right by. I really enjoyed working up this little guy. He is so adorable, I think I need one for myself. Just look at that little face!

If you are interested in crocheting one of these cuties for yourself, the pattern is Friendly Jellyfish by ChiWei Ranck. I used Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Cotton in Amethyst and Rosey II. One skein of each was enough to finish with some left over. Thinking about making some washcloths with the remains. I could always use more washcloths…

For the features, I used a pair of 9mm safety eyes, as the pattern called for them, and a bit of left over black fingering weight yarn for the mouth.

It took quite a bit of hunting before I found the 9mm eyes, so I’ll save you some time; Michael’s doesn’t carry them at all, but you can find them at Joann or Hobby Lobby in the aisle with the dolls and doll clothing. Or you can order them online, if neither of these stores are available to you.